Introduction to Běijīng
Part of the Background section of A Better Guide to Běijīng
Whoever has paid a visit to the Lung Fu Ssu fair will remember the narrow lanes branching eastward from the main thoroughfare as one approaches from the south the Four Arches at the junction of the Hata Men, the Chao Yang Men and Pig Streets, and the prolongation of the boulevard that leads north to the Tartar City wall. The small lanes look so alike to a stranger that it is difficult for him to distinguish one from the other. Peking is a strange city and will remain strange in spite of the proposed plan for the reorganization of the city.
H.Y. Lowe, The Adventures of Wu, Běijīng 1940
Strange it is, and reorganization on a scale beyond anything of which Lowe could have conceived 75 years ago has only made it stranger. Běijīng offers curly-eaved China as the West wants to find it, alongside ugly utilitarian buildings indistinguishable from those in Russia or Eastern Europe, stock towers in bland international styles identical to those found almost anywhere else, and the latest extravagant efforts of fashionable international architects which are worth travelling to see in their own right, as would have been the centuries-old traditional housing whose sites they now occupy.
The capital of a civilization whose social institutions and physical infrastructure have been in decay for centuries, Běijīng is now on the operating table as the government performs cosmetic surgery in order to hide its identity and make it indistinguishable from the major cities of more developed countries — pride of race, nation, and political system demand this. Of course, what the wrecking ball and bulldozer have reduced to ruin is often what gives other capitals their charm, character, and identity, but the government cannot permit it to be seen that more than 70 years of communist rule and ‘socialist’ progress have failed to provide standards of glossiness to match those of other systems (although even the briefest trip into the countryside will tell another story).
So Běijīng sometimes disappoints in not living up to the many expectations of its visitors. Wispy-bearded old gentlemen do not throng streets of ornate mansions, their hands thrust deep into long sleeves, muttering inscrutable quotations from Confucius. The city is neither a museum for the entertainment of foreigners, nor a Charlie Chan movie. The Chinese are abandoning their bicycles for cars whenever they can (and for electric versions when they can’t), their Běijīng opera for downloaded or streamed Hollywood videos, and have long abandoned their blue cotton jackets for polyester blouses and suits. If this disappoints it is the visitor who is to blame, not the visited.
But even as mechanical assistance terminally accelerates the long-drawn-out crumbling of traditional courtyard houses to make space for the construction of some modern monstrosity, ancient temples, theatres, and mansions, which have been biding their time as warehouses, workshops, and police stations, are being reopened, and on every return visit to Běijīng there’s more to see.
A more relaxed economy has permitted the growth of colourful street markets, although these have then been corralled into purpose-built covered spaces, and the opening of nearly as many restaurants as there are people. Competition has created hotels and other services with something more than méi yǒu (‘not have’) in their vocabularies, and even had an effect on the museum sector, where private establishments offer detailed English explanations of their well-lit and displayed contents, with at least some idea of pleasing the customer.
The newly constructed long-distance road system does double duty in conveying the city’s growing middle class to the surrounding countryside, where township governments are rapidly rescuing overgrown pagodas and sprucing up ruined temples so as to divert some of this new disposable income their own way.
Běijīng really only represents Běijīng—where disposable incomes are said to be twice the national average—and not the reality of a China in which a third of the population still lives in the countryside. A day trip out of the city should be regarded as essential, not only for relatively quiet leafiness, the architecture of a rural temple, or the atmosphere of an overgrown tomb site, but for the sight of horse-drawn ploughs, the splash of yellow corn cobs spread out to dry on low roofs, and gaudy persimmons being cut from trees with broomstick-mounted knives.
The Běijīng of 30 years ago was glum, grey, and mostly shut. The Běijīng of today seethes and swarms with people in search of a little amusement, choosing between Internet cafés and mah-jong (麻将, májiàng), between newly opened sections of imperial palaces and newly opened funfairs, and between traditional hotpot restaurants and McDonald’s.
Strange Běijīng is indeed, but never dull.
Next in Background: A Brief History of Běijīng
Background Index
Main Index of A Better Guide to Běijīng.
